ONTARIO, Ore. — USDA officials have defended their Jan. 17 decision to deregulate a genetically engineered creeping bentgrass that escaped field trials in 2003 and has taken root in two Oregon counties and a small part of one Idaho county.

And Scotts Miracle-Gro Co., which created the grass, defended its decision to seek a deregulated status for the grass despite agreeing not to commercialize it.

Environmental groups, on the other hand, continue to harshly criticize USDA’s decision to deregulate the creeping bentgrass, which was developed by Scotts and Monsanto Corp. to withstand applications of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer.

Rick Coker, a USDA public affairs specialist, told Capital Press in an email the department must, under the Plant Protection Act, respond to any petition that requests a determination of regulatory status for a genetically engineered organism.

USDA’s decision must be based on whether the organism is likely to pose a plant pest risk, he said. If the department determines it does not, it “has no legal basis to continue to regulate that GE organism and must deregulate (it).”

After escaping field trials, the bentgrass took root in Malheur and Jefferson counties in Oregon and part of Canyon County in Idaho.

Scotts reached a 10-year memorandum of agreement and memorandum of understanding with USDA in 2015 that lays out the company’s continued responsibilities for helping control the bentgrass.

As part of the agreement, the company has agreed not to commercialize the plant, which was being developed for use on golf courses.

Jim King, senior vice president of corporate affairs for Scotts, said the golf course industry has changed dramatically since the company started developing the plant and the marketplace for that product is no longer viable and shrinking.

“Economically, it makes no sense to commercialize it,” he said.

The company opted to continue to pursue deregulation because it felt it needed an answer from USDA on whether a product Scotts invested tens of millions of dollars in should be approved, King said.

USDA has a regulatory road map that allow companies such as Scotts that are in the business of innovation to know if a certain product should be approved, he said.

“We had a legitimate petition in front of USDA, we wanted an answer and they finally provided the answer,” he said.

Lori Ann Burd, director of the Center for Biological Diversity’s environmental health program, said the decision to deregulate the bentgrass means the agreements covering the control of the escaped crop are no longer valid.

She pointed out that the word “regulated” appears before “glyphosate tolerant creeping bentgrass” each time Scotts responsibilities are laid out in the agreements.

The responsibilities “apply exclusively to regulated (bentgrass),” she said.

But even if that’s not the case, she said, the agreements only require Scotts to take minimal action.

Burd said USDA’s decision leaves her group no choice but to explore legal options to challenge it.

The agreements require the company in 2017 and 2018 to provide technical assistance to affected farmers and irrigation districts and provide incentives for the adoption of best management practices to control the grass.

Scotts will pull back a little after that but still continue to analyze the situation, educate growers and provide technical assistance.

Coker said the agreements “remain in effect regardless of the deregulated status of (the grass) because the compliance incidents predated the deregulation.”

King said Scotts will honor the agreements “and, if we have to, we’ll do more. We consider those to be documents that were negotiated in good faith .. and we have every intention of living up to everything we said we were going to do.”

Tuesdays

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 25

SALEM — Kiara Single was chosen the 2017 Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador at the 58th annual coronation event on Jan. 21 in Salem.

The 20-year-old Warren resident, representing Columbia County, was crowned from a field of four finalists. The event was sponsored by the Oregon Dairy Women.

Kortni Ragsdale, a 2015 Banks High School graduate now attending Portland Community College and who represented Washington County in the competition, was chosen the First Alternate.

Other finalists included Faith Wilson of Linn and Benton counties and Emma Coleman of Marion County.

Ragsdale also received the Miss Congeniality award.

After the crowning ceremony, Single was presented over $3,500 in scholarships.

Outgoing 2016 Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador Sara Pierson received a total of $17,675 for her past year’s work.

Single is a student at Concordia University studying elementary education, and hopes to become a second-grade teacher. She is the daughter of John and Suzie Single, and her father is the production planner at the Kroger Swan Island milk processing plant.

Her speech at the banquet held in the Salem Convention Center was titled, “For the Love of Milk,” and centered on the health benefits of dairy products and “the journey of milk from farm to table.”

She now begins her year traveling statewide to make presentations at fairs, town meetings and public events representing Oregon’s dairy industry. A particular focus is on classroom presentations depicting life on a dairy farm and the nutritional benefits of dairy products.

The Oregon Dairy Women’s Dairy Princess Ambassador Program has served since 1959 as a prime advocate for the state’s dairy industry in collaboration with the Oregon Dairy Farmers Association and the Oregon Dairy Nutrition Council.

“We have expanded our program to include K-12 and civic presentations,” said Jessica Kliewer, Oregon Dairy Princess Ambassador program state director. “Since Kiara is planning on becoming an educator, we believe she will be a great asset in spreading the good news about dairy.”

The Oregon Dairy Women award scholarships, and provide financial support to 4-H and FFA programs, Agriculture in the Classroom, Ag Fest, Summer Ag Institute, Adopt-a-Farmer and judging teams.

SALEM — Agribusiness groups have cheered the Trump administration’s vow to roll back federal regulations but they continue to fear overreach by the state government in Oregon.

With Democrats controlling the Oregon Legislature and the governor’s office, farm lobbyists said they expect new threats to emerge during the 2017 legislative session.

Despite optimism at the national level, the political climate in Oregon “sucks some of the air out of the room,” said Katie Fast, executive director of the Oregonians for Food and Shelter agribusiness group.

Though Republicans picked up one seat in the state Senate during last year’s election, they’re still a minority in both legislative chambers and several moderate-leaning Democrats have left their positions, Fast said during the 2017 Ag Summit, organized by the Dunn Carney law firm.

One proposal to be considered during the upcoming legislative session, Senate Bill 499, would remove protections for pesticide usage from the state’s “Right to Farm and Forest Law,” which prohibits lawsuits and local ordinances against common farming practices, she said.

“It’s a big attack on the whole program,” said Fast.

Another piece of legislation — House Bill 2469 — would effectively allow Josephine County to ban genetically engineered crops, she said. State law pre-empts local governments from regulating such crops, but includes an exception for Jackson County.

Lawmakers will also be asked to consider Senate Bill 500, which removes the requirement people to notify the Oregon Department of Agriculture before filing lawsuits that allege damage from pesticides, Fast said.

Though bills have yet to be introduced, Oregonians for Food and Shelter also expects legislation that would impose new notification requirements for pesticide spraying as well as restrictions on neonicotinoid insecticides, she said.

Labor advocates succeeded in getting paid sick leave and minimum wage increases passed during recent legislative sessions, and will turn their aim to new policy proposals in 2017, said Jenny Dresler, state public policy director for the Oregon Farm Bureau.

Under House Bill 2193, for example, large employers would have to provide “predictable scheduling” under which workers would be paid “penalty wages” if their shifts change with less than two weeks’ notice.

While smaller-scale employers wouldn’t be subject to the requirement, their workers would have the right to offer input on their work schedules under the bill.

It’s also likely that labor advocates will propose a 1 percent payroll tax to pay for a statewide family and medical leave policy for workers, Dresler said.

Farms and other businesses will be pushing for transportation funding that would alleviate congestion and reduce the time their products get to market, said Jeff Stone, executive director of the Oregon Association of Nurseries.

However, there may not be “enough oxygen” for such a proposal given the need to fill the state’s $1.7 billion budget hole, Stone said. “You may not be able to get both.”

YAKIMA, Wash. — Bob Bailey, who grew his family farm into the largest cherry operation in Oregon, is the 73rd king of the Pacific Northwest cherry industry.

Bailey was chosen by past cherry kings for his industry service and was crowned at the annual Cherry Institute of Northwest Cherry Growers at the Yakima Convention Center on Jan. 20.

Bailey, 75, is chairman of the board of Orchard View Farms Inc. in The Dalles, Ore. His daughter, Brenda Thomas, is president, and his brother, Ken, is vice president.

His brother, Tom, was also involved in the family business and was cherry king in 2003. Their father, Don, was king in 1974. Don and Tom worked to patent View Fresh, modified atmosphere cherry packing in the 1990s.

“I feel really good about it because a lot of people I’ve worked with over the last 30 to 40 years in the industry are the people who honored me with this honor,” Bob Bailey said.

Having enough workers is the biggest challenge the industry faces today, he said.

Orchard View Farms employees 100 people year-round and 1,000 during cherry harvest, which is done without hiring H-2A visa foreign guestworkers. Most of their seasonal help comes from California, he said.

The company has 2,500 acres of cherry orchards and packs about 1 million, 20-pound boxes of cherries annually, making it the largest sweet cherry grower in Oregon and one of the largest in the nation.

The cherries are sold through The Oppenheimer Group in Vancouver, B.C.

Bailey was born in The Dalles on July 30, 1941, one of seven children of Don and Edwina Bailey. His grandparents, Walter and Mabel Bailey, started the farm in 1923.

With his siblings, Bob Bailey was picking up peach tree prunings when he was 6 years old. His grandfather and father ran Columbia Fruit Growers, a cooperative in The Dalles that through several mergers is now part of Oregon Cherry Growers.

Bailey enjoyed growing cherries, ran harvest crews each summer and graduated from The Dalles High School in 1959. He graduated from Oregon State University in Corvallis in 1963 with a major in business and a minor in horticulture.

Bailey met his wife, Barbara Strickland, on a blind date at Seattle Seafair in 1961 and in 1965 they decided to become the first full-time farmers in the family, transitioning his family farm from apples to cherries in the 1990s. He worked to extend his cherry season with new varieties and expanding his orchards from The Dalles to Dufur Valley and Klickitat County in Washington. In the early 1980s, he built apple cold storage and packing facilities and added a cherry packing line in 1984 which was replaced with a high-tech Unitec line in 2016.

MONDAY, JAN. 23

A Wallowa County ranch figures to save 1 billion gallons of water annually through a series of conservation projects, such as adding sprinklers and forgoing irrigation during peak summer months.

The Freshwater Trust, an environmental nonprofit with offices in Portland, announced it is working with Wolfe Ranch to upgrade irrigation infrastructure, transfer points of diversion and lease water rights on the farm to benefit endangered salmon in the Lostine River.

Funding comes from a $1.4 million grant awarded by the Oregon Water Resources Department. Irrigation upgrades are also expected to boost crop yields by 5 to 20 percent on the ranch.

“We’ve formed lasting relationships with dozens of farmers and ranchers who understand conservation isn’t just about protecting fish,” said Aaron Maxwell, flow restoration project manager for The Freshwater Trust, who works out of Enterprise. “It’s about the longevity of their farms, economies and entire communities.”

Nearly 1,100 acres of forage and grain crops will be converted to pivot sprinklers as opposed to flood irrigation at the ranch — which Maxwell compared to the difference between letting your hose run into the yard, or watering just the section that needs it most.

“In the face of present and future water scarcity, modernizations like this will only become more imperative,” he said.

Ditching flood irrigation may also have a positive effect on water quality, Maxwell said, reducing the amount of standing water in fields that can become contaminated with sediment, bacteria and toxins before draining back into streams.

Water saved through the irrigation upgrades will be transferred back into the Lostine River, which harbors summer chinook and steelhead populations. Wolfe Ranch will also voluntarily abstain from irrigating in August and September, when the river reaches critically low water levels.

The changes may allow Wolfe Ranch, a sixth-generation family operation, to begin growing more high-value food crops, which could have a ripple effect down the entire Wallowa County agricultural industry. Local businesses are already slated to provide approximately $2 million in construction materials and labor.

“Production and economics must always be taken into consideration with projects like these,” Maxwell said. “This will have positive implications for the landowner and the local economy.”

The Freshwater Trust has been working with farms and ranches on the Lostine River for more than a decade, Maxwell said, after chinook runs were nearly wiped out in the 1990s. The organization was also awarded $114,265 from the Water Resources Department last year to study whether irrigation efficiencies could help protect salmon on upper Catherine Creek in Union County.

Woody Wolfe, owner of Wolfe Ranch, said water scarcity and quality issues aren’t going to simply go away.

“Projects like this help further the responsible use of our natural resources while benefiting the environment,” Wolfe said.

Nov. 29, 1938 – Jan. 12, 2017

Saturdays

EUGENE, Ore. (AP) — Scientists at Oregon State University have sequenced the beaver genome thanks to a 2015 crowdfunding effort.

The Register-Guard reports that the funding drive raised $20,001 from 103 donors. OSU used the money to pay for research on the genetic code of its mascot animal, the North American beaver.

The project used a blood sample from the 5-year-old beaver, Filbert, who lives at the Portland Zoo. OSU researchers say they discovered that beavers have 26,200 genes, or about 33 percent more inheritable information that humans have.

OSU says the project was done in a spirit of fun but could also lead to scientific advances by providing insights into beaver populations, diseases and evolutionary history.

NORTH BEND — Researching Grants, for first time grant writers, is a free workshop for non-profit organizations. The workshop will begin at 2 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 1, at North Bend Public Library. Anyone is welcome and no registration is required.

Corvallis, Ore. — The expansion of Oregon’s hazelnut orchards is gaining momentum, with acreage surging by nearly 64 percent in the past five years, according to an industry analyst.

Farmers planted about 9,200 acres of hazelnuts last year, up from 6,200 acres in 2015 and 4,300 acres in 2014, said Mike McDaniel, principal of Pacific Agricultural Survey, which tracks the industry’s growth.

“It’s an accelerated growth of new plantings,” McDaniel said.

Enthusiasm for hazelnuts is high due to healthy prices and the availability of new cultivars resistant to eastern filbert blight, a fungal pathogen that once threatened the industry.

Total hazelnut acreage in Oregon now tops 60,600 acres, according to McDaniel’s analysis. That’s an increase of more than 23,500 acres since the USDA’s 2012 Census of Agriculture.

To compare, Oregon’s hazelnut acreage increased by fewer than 4,000 acres in the entire decade between 2002 and 2012, according to USDA.

Pacific Agricultural Survey relies on aerial geographic data to monitor hazelnut acreage, McDaniel said on Jan. 18 at the 2017 Nut Growers Society meeting in Corvallis, Ore.

The company’s estimate of hazelnut acreage growth is conservative, since many growers think the expansion is even larger based on sales of nursery seedlings, he said.

It’s likely that some new trees are “intercropped” within existing hazelnut orchards, obscuring the new plantings, McDaniel said. “That’s not visible through a dense canopy cover.”

In other cases, McDaniel said he’s observed new orchards failing to become established, with the trees removed soon after planting.

Nik Wiman, an Oregon State University Extension orchard crops specialist, said he isn’t surprised.

“I think a lot of poor quality trees have been sold,” Wiman said.

Weak hazelnut seedlings don’t necessarily end up dying, though.

Farmers who buy weak trees may plant them in high-density sawdust nursery rows until they grow stronger and are ready for the orchard, Wiman said.

In his aerial reconnaissance, McDaniel has noticed that farmers haven’t been removing mature orchards all at once — not surprising, given the high prices hazelnuts have fetched in recent years.

Instead, growers divide orchards into several blocks and replace old trees with new ones “a few bites at a time,” he said.

Aside from the ongoing battle against eastern filbert blight, recent droughts in Oregon have stressed hazelnut trees, making new plantings vulnerable to flatheaded borers, which are tree pests.

“It advertises the tree to the borer. They’re less able to resist,” Wiman said of drought effects.

In 2017, OSU plans to conduct trials to determine the effectiveness of different pesticides in fighting the borers, he said.

Another pest, the brown marmorated stinkbug, is becoming a significant problem for hazelnut producers, but help is on the way, Wiman said.

The samurai wasp — a natural predator of the exotic stinkbug — was discovered at 11 sites in Multnomah County, Ore., last year.

Specimens of the wasp have been redistributed to fruit and nut orchards across the state to speed up their predation of stinkbugs, he said.

It will take a while for wasp populations to catch up with those of stinkbugs, but they are an effective predator in China, the homeland of both species, Wiman said,

“Over there, they hammer 80-90 percent of the eggs,” he said.

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — The attorney for a leader of the armed occupation at an Oregon wildlife refuge is now facing three charges after an incident in which federal marshals tackled him for refusing to stop arguing with the judge in the case.

The Oregonian/OregonLive reports a federal prosecutor assigned from Washington state filed court documents Friday charging Marcus Mumford with three misdemeanors.

The incident in question occurred when Mumford’s client Ammon Bundy was acquitted last fall.

The latest documents replace citations against Mumford which he had pleaded not guilty to earlier this month.

Mumford is accused of creating a disturbance by impeding or disrupting official government duties. He’s also charged with failure to comply with signs that prohibit disruption of official government duties and failure to comply with the lawful direction of a federal police officer.

Mumford and his lawyer, Michael Levine, have said they intend to vigorously challenge the charges.

Due to severe winter weather in the Columbia River Gorge, the Capital Press is experiencing difficulty in trucking the Jan. 20 edition from our printing plant in Pendleton, Ore., to the Postal Service in Portland. We expect delays in readers receiving their copies.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

Subscribers have access to all Capital Press content, which is available on this website. Or, they can read the e-edition of this week’s paper, also available on this site.

If you are unsure how to access the e-edition, call us at 1-800-882-6789 for assistance.

With snow turning to rain in Western Oregon, producers are digging out and checking for damage in a variety of crops.

Some hazelnut orchards in the Eugene area sustained heavy limb breakage and even toppled trees during an ice storm in December, but the snow and ice of January was more widespread and may have affected a broader range of crops.

Bernadine Strik, an Oregon State University horticulture professor and berry crop specialist, said June-bearing strawberries should be fine, especially if protected by a snow cover. However, continual cropping varieties such as Albion may have sustained some damage if farm temperatures dropped below 20 degrees and lacked a snow cover.

Trailing blackberries vary in cold hardiness, Strik said by email. Marions are less hardy than Columbia Star or Black Diamond, for example.

“The good news is that it got cold when plants were fully dormant and it stayed cold — that’s better than fluctuating temperatures,” Strik said. “I think most growers of Marion should be OK, especially if temperatures stayed above the low teens (Fahrenheit). Farms where it got colder may see some damage.”

Raspberries and late-season fresh-market blackberries should be fine, and blueberry varieties are cold hardy when fully dormant, she said.

Strik said growers can’t assess damage now, as it takes time for cold-damaged tissue to express itself. She recommended sampling canes, buds or strawberry crowns in late winter, prior to bud break, by slicing open the tissue and looking for oxidized or brown and black material.

In the Columbia River Gorge, producers saw heavy snow and then were hit by an ice storm that arrived on the afternoon of Jan. 17. The storm quickly forced the closure of Interstate 84, which parallels the river, from Troutdale, a suburb on Portland’s east side, to Hood River, a stretch of about 50 miles.

The front hit Portland as rain but turned to black ice on the freeway farther east as moisture met the cold air that funnels down the gorge in winter.

In The Dalles, 85 miles east of Portland, OSU Extension small grains specialist Brian Tuck said “So far, so good” on ag damage but was keeping an eye on the ice storm approaching Hood River.

Luckily, a good snow cover was in place to protect the Columbia basin’s winter wheat crop, Tuck said. Snow acts like a blanket and insulates the young wheat plants, planted last fall, during extended periods of cold, he said.

At Surface Nursery outside Gresham, Ore., the first ice storm in December broke some tree branches but caused minimal damage overall. The bigger problem came with the subsequent extended cold in January, owner Graham Anderson said. “Our harvest was brought to a standstill by 4 inches of frost in the ground covered by 4 inches of snow,” he said. In addition, icy road conditions prevented employees from getting to work, he said.

The nursery grows shade and flowering trees and pulls them from the ground this time of year for a shipping season that normally starts Feb. 1, Anderson said by email.

“We are eager to thaw out and resume harvesting trees,” he said. “We will certainly be behind schedule due to winter weather delays and shortage of labor.”

In Southern Oregon, environmental science professor Gregory Jones said there may be some vineyard damage in the coldest areas and to selected varieties in the Rogue and Applegate regions.

“Nothing from the northern Umpqua south and throughout the Rogue,” Jones reported by email. “We have been cold and snowy since Christmas, but no ice or major damage from the snow.”

A Spray, Ore., landowner was awarded the state’s first loan under a program intended to jump-start the removal of Western juniper trees.

Jim Epley, who is restoring 1,500 acres of long-held family property to be a cattle operation, will use the $39,000 loan to continue cutting and milling juniper trees. He’s bought saws, a trailer, a portable mill and a skid-steer Bobcat to move logs. In addition, he’s hired two people and had a third coming on before recent bad weather force a temporary shutdown.

The state loan program, known as the Western Juniper Industry Fund, was established by the Oregon Legislature in 2015. Advocates have long held that removing intrusive juniper trees from Eastern Oregon rangeland has multiple benefits. Juniper is a “water thief,” as one rancher called it, that can use up to 30 gallons or more of water a day and rob native grasses of moisture.

A study by Oregon State University showed that removing juniper almost instantly improved watersheds and stream flows, and Epley said he’s seen that on his own property.

When he was growing up, the property had multiple springs that bubbled up to the surface in springtime. He left home to do other things, and when he moved back in 1996, juniper trees had crowded in and the springs had dried up.

He decided to clear 10 to 15 acres around one of the springs, cutting the juniper trees and hauling them out.

“The next day, the ground was wet,” he said. “In a week, water was running.”

Stories like that are why researchers, politicians, various government agency experts and environmental groups have pushed for juniper removal. In addition to improving rangeland, they believe juniper logging and milling could revitalize the economy in parts of rural Oregon.

Believing it and making it come about are two different things, however. Juniper is gnarly wood that is tough to cut and mill into lumber, and requires extensive de-limbing. Unlike fir and pine trees in national forests, it grows in areas of the state that often lack logging roads and other infrastructure. In the past, ranchers simply piled it and burned it, because doing more with it was time-consuming and expensive.

However, a small but strong market has emerged for juniper landscape timbers and posts, and some furniture makers seek it out as well. Juniper posts are naturally rot-resistant and don’t have to be treated with preservatives, making them attractive for use in organic vineyards, for example, and in playgrounds.

The Legislature approved the $800,000 juniper industry fund to support removal programs. Of that, $500,000 was intended as loans to increase harvesting and manufacturing; $200,000 was for technical assistance; and $100,000 was for workforce training.

Epley said there is enough juniper on the family property and adjoining neighbors to keep him busy for two or three years, and after that may explore logging elsewhere.

LANGLOIS — London to Paris via the Channel Islands: An Interesting Langlois event by Deanna McDermott will be held at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Jan. 25, at the Langlois Public Library.

The deregulation was not unexpected. Last month APHIS released a final Environmental Impact Statement that recommended deregulation of the genetically engineered creeping bentgrass because it “is unlikely to pose a plant pest risk....”

Scotts and Monsanto petitioned USDA to deregulate the bentgrass, which was genetically engineered to withstand applications of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s popular Roundup weed killer.

The plant escaped field trials in 2003 and has taken root in Malheur and Jefferson counties in Oregon.

Some farmers and water manages in the affected counties worry that because the bentgrass is resistant to glyphosate and difficult to kill, it could clog irrigation ditches and affect shipments of hay and other crops to nations that don’t accept traces of genetically modified organisms.

Scotts reached a 10-year agreement with USDA last October that critics say allows the company to essentially walk away from any responsibility for controlling the plant in a few years.

As part of the agreement, Scotts and Monsanto agreed not to commercialize or further propagate the plant in the future.

JUNCTION CITY, Ore. (AP) — A 33-year-old vineyard worker from Corvallis is dead after he was found trapped under a utility vehicle at a winery near Junction City.

The Register-Guard reported Tuesday that Bentley Hart Chappell was pronounced dead at the scene on Saturday at Brigadoon Wine Company.

He was found by another employee at the bottom of a dirt road.

The cause of death is being investigated by the Lane County Medical Examiner’s Office and the Lane County Sheriff’s Office.

Winery owner Chris Shown says the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is also investigating the death.

Shown declined to comment further to the newspaper.

Friends say Chappell — a native of Georgia — was working at the winery to learn more about winemaking.

He was also passionate about music and craft brewing.

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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com